IPL Governing Council Defers Decision on MCA Protest Letter

Mumbai, 2014/May/13 10:08:00

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The IPL Governing Council deferred its decision over the protest letter it has received from the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) against the shifting of the cash-rich league's final from Wankhede to M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.

"No decision was taken today," interim BCCI-IPL president Sunil Gavaskar told the waiting reporters at the BCCI's headquarters.Gavaskar, however, did not reveal when the GC could decide to put an end to the impasse.

Stung by the Governing Council's decision to shift the final assigning any specific reasons, MCA president Sharad Pawar had shot off a protest letter to the IPL Governing Council and all BCCI members demanding the real reason behind shifting the T20 extravaganza's grand finale to Bangalore from its original venue.

The letter by Pawar had asked for the reason for this decision of the Governing Council: "Considering that 20 matches of the ongoing Pepsi IPL season were played overseas, the GC took a decision to try and take the play-offs to as many stadias as possible. Several venues had expressed their interest in hosting the play-offs," BCCI had said when announcing the revised knock out schedule.

MCA had convened an emergency managing committee meeting yesterday and told reporters they had been told that IPL GC's decision would be communicated to them today.

"We had a managing committee meeting today and the members were apprised of the media release put out by the BCCI about the shifting of the final to Bangalore. Meanwhile we are also in communication with BCCI and the Governing Council of IPL on the issue," Ravi Savant, vice president of MCA who chaired today's managing committee meeting, had said yesterday.

"Mr Sunil Gavaskar (interim president of BCCI on IPL matters) has told us that they will discuss the letter and come back to us with their ruling tomorrow. We are hopeful it will be in favour of MCA," he added.

Protesting against the BCCI move officials of the MCA have handed over their IPL accreditation to the tournament organisers.

"We have handed over all our IPL accreditations. The office-bearers of MCA, managing committee members and the volunteers connected with the tournament have done so as we are not happy that the final has been taken away without assigning proper reason," MCA treasurer Vinod Deshpande said on Sunday.

However, other MCA sources told PTI today that the accreditations had been surrendered to the association officials only and a final call would be taken on the issue once the IPL GC replied to the protest letter.

On Saturday, IPL's GC got involved in a tele-conference and decided to allot the final to the Karnataka Cricket Association.The 30 May Qualifier 2, however, is scheduled as per original fixture at the Wankhede Stadium, which has already hosted three home games of Mumbai Indians and is set to host two more on May 23 and 25.The 28 May eliminator has been allotted to the Cricket Club of India's Brabourne Stadium.

Kolkata Knight Riders' victory celebrations post their triumphant Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign were marred by a near-stampede followed by a lathi-charge as more than 150,000 supported clambered over barricades and gates to get a glimpse of their heroes.